Fuser oil is applied to the fuser roller so that toner does not stick to the fuser roller. The paper width determines the width of oil that should be laid down on the fuser roller. Currently, in one example of the art, oil is applied to the fuser roller in a fixed width, as determined by a rotating oil wick. There are 11 different wick sizes, ranging from 8.50 inches up to 14.00 inches in half-inch increments excluding 9.00 inches. When a customer changes paper sizes, the corresponding size wick should also be installed in the machine if that job is of significant size (number of pages). This prevents under oiling or over oiling of the fuser roller. Using an under size wick (under oiling) can result in toner sticking to the fuser roller. This will cause paper jams and eventual failure of the fuser roller and the wick itself. Using an over size wick (over oiling) will contaminate other portions of the electrophotographic process (transfer/film) and the web cleaner with excessive oil. Either under or over oiling can lead to expensive service calls.
The oiled length of a rotating wick is determined by an oil barrier between the porous ceramic core and the surface layer of the wick. Since all of the wicks look identical (with the exception of a different colored dot), it is difficult for a user to identify what size wick is in the machine. Furthermore, most users simply will not change wicks based on the job width size. Still further, since the machine can be loaded with many paper width size jobs that run consecutively without the machine stopping, there is no opportunity to stop and change the wick size. All of the above can lead to the failure modes mentioned.